At-work text messages are private, court rules

By MAURA DOLAN
Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO � An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The court's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario, Calif., police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city's service provider, the city and its Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches.

Although the city had informed employees it might monitor e-mails, the informal policy was that text messages sent over city-owned pagers would not be monitored, the court said. If an employee exceeded the city's limit on text messages, the employee had to pay the "overage" charges.

In August 2002, Quon and another officer exceeded the 25,000-character limit for texting. The police chief ordered a subordinate to obtain transcripts of the officers' text messages to determine whether the pagers were being used purely for work purposes.

The provider, Arch Wireless, sent the department transcripts of the messages. The city determined that many of Quon's messages were personal, and several were sexually explicit.


Details.

[The outcome of this case changes if you have an office policy that either (1) prohibits personal use of text messaging or (2) a warning that text messaging content will be monitored. What is your office policy?]

God forbid an employer providing a service for work should be able to monitor the use of the service. Has anyone but the loony left of the 9th come up with the same conclusion?

Well, the 9th Circuit seems to say that an employer must expressly tell an employee that the office cell phone is subject to being monitored for improper texting. Seems like an odd reversal of the employer/employee relationship. So, you better amend the office manual to (1) prohibit texting or (2) put the employee on notice that texting will be monitored.

Oh, and I assume the 9th Circuit agrees that the employee should pay for the overcharge from excess texting. Perhaps that will be deducted from the civil damages awarded the offended employee.

Well, we've heard about what was on the 9th circuit judge's web page, so we can only imagine what's on his text messages! "It's all about expression!"